I wanna get sick/I wanna catch everything you've ever caught

I reviewed Veronica Falls' new record, Waiting For Something To Happen, for the Feb issue of Q (out now). I expect it'll be one of spring/summer 2013's most beloved indie soundtracks, which'll take on a  sweet transformation for me since I rinsed it lovingly to death back in bitter, wintery November, a month that didn't quite suit some of the sunburst, coming-of-age guitar magic that's at work on the record. Tell Me, the opening track, is especially lovely, and filled with the kind of inquisitive, wide-eyed desire/hunger for experience and adventure that growingpainspop sounds like when its at its giddy, aching best.

WASTED

The plan was to allow myself a good, healthy fortnight to process ALL THE FEELINGS before I blogged about Queer Zine Fest London's hugely successful inaugural bash. But now that the aforementioned measure of time has passed, I find I'm still deep in the throes of emotional recalibration, and I'm not sure I'm able/inclined to articulate how very much the event meant to me just yet. Expect a belated blog post re this at some point in the new year. 

I managed to put together two zines in time for QZFL. The first, WASTED, is a fanzine for the vanished London haunts of my queer youth, featuring illustrations by Michelle Mendonça. The cover photo features M and me in drunken slumber on the night bus. It's one of my favourite photos of us, and was taken during the very early, inebriated days of our courtship. Here's the blurb:

This is a fanzine about the queer haunts of our youth. It’s a love letter to the lost heart of queer London, one that’s been obliterated by Cross Rail expansion, ConDem-led recession and the exodus of queer culture from central to east London. This is a map of the places were we fell in love, the clubs in which we found community, friends and home. This is for all the places that existed before Facebook was a thing, before the smoking ban came into force, for beloved dives in and around Soho, Tottenham Court Road and Leicester Square, a paean to once-thriving queer venues that are no more. 

Paypal £1 and yr addy to charlotte.richardson.andrews@gmail.com and a copy can be yrs!

The second, Why Can't You Draw Something Nice? is a queer art zine by Michelle Mendonça. She's tech challenged, so I handled the grunt work (margin twiddling, layout fiddling, pagination wizardry) and whipped up an intro. M is mega talented, and I think her work will take off in a mighty big way come 2013. WCYDSN? is also £1. Send yr details to raisingrrl81@hotmail.com for the goodies.   

You better bring yrself

I've written an article on queer women who are/do poly and what monogamous types can learn from them, which can be found in the current (January) issue of DIVA Magazine. Its out now and features mega babe Ana Matronic on la cover. Word of the day: frubbliness!

I've been taking stock, as crits/writers/the world is wont to do at this time of year, and am feeling mighty proud of the pieces I've written for the magazine over the past 12 months. I'm particularly grateful to be working for/with an editor so consistently committed to covering talented queer women and exploring issues that matter to our communities, both within the mainstream and outside of it. My features for DIVA in Twenty Twelve have included interviews with THEEsatisfaction, Staceyanne Chin, Beth Ditto and Hannah Blilie of Gossip, Stooshe, Peaches, Grace Petrie, Skunk Anansie's Skin and Nona Hendryx, along with investigative/reportive pieces on lezsploitation and in/visibility in UK TV, the rise of UK based lesbian activism (in response to the ConDem coalition and austerity measures), the achievements of queer women on the UK zine scene, the new anti-squatting laws and the aforementioned poly article. 

I'm biased, obvs, but I think DIVA does a spectacular job of representing queer women. Not yet a subscriber? Then fix that ish up sharpish, friend, and ensure yr 2013 rules by supporting and enjoying radicallesbianfeminist print publications!  

I've got to show the world/all that I wanna be/and all my abilities

Week seis of my more! magazine column is out now, and awaiting yr perusal. This week: coming out, over and over again! Micro-outs! PDAs! Queer intuition! Its all there, folks.

Kill my blues with yr love

I interviewed Corin Tucker during the lead up to the 2012 US presidential election. We talked politics, feminism, motherhood, zines and the benefits of being an older musician. I also asked her if its true that the person on the front cover of All Hands On The Bad One is in fact her, and that the picture was taken while she was being carried out of a gig after picking a drunken fight with a bouncer and passing out, because I read this somewhere aaaages ago and have always hoped it was true.   

http://wearsthetrousers.com/2012/12/corin-tucker-interview-2012/

Have faith in you and the things you do

#5 of my more! magazine column is now out. This week: falling in love! Navigating my first, serious girl/girl relationship! Realising dyke coupledom didn't automatically = butch/femme gender role dynamics! Also, good news:  I've had word from Bauer HQ that my originally slated 6-week run has now been extended to 9. Huzzah!

And the sky was made of amethyst

Week #4 of my more! magazine column is out. This week: online dating!  Adventuring into the world of GaydarGirls.com and navigating the crazies, kinksters and threesome-seeking straight couples to find...The One!      

To taste the sweetness will be enough

My latest column for more! mag is out now. This week: Losing yr lez v-card! Debunking the penetration-is-king myth! Queer-made porn vs woeful heternormative sex ed! Awkward first times! Sexxxual liberation, lez style!

"When I was at church, they taught me something else/If you preach hate at the service, those words aren’t anointed"

My latest column for more! magazine is out now, on the shelves of yr nearest reputable newsagents and featuring K-Stew's smug mug on the front cover. This week: finding your tribe, rites of passage (goodbye tresses, hello generic lesbian haircut) and the joys of gay clubbing.

Writing this column has been an interesting exercise so far. I've been out for 8/9 years, and the experiences of those years has allowed me to write (relatively) freely about the pleasures and trials of being queer with (relatively) little qualms about who will be reading them. As I celebrate my queer coming-of-age in this column, writing gaily about strap-ons and losing my lez v-card, I'm very aware, on a personal level, that others do not enjoy the same freedoms. I guess the coming-out story might sometimes feel like a hackneyed narrative for seasoned queers. Some of us would rather be busy getting on with the important stuff then picking over a process that should, in a decent world, be as incidental as puberty. If, like me, you came out years ago, facing only mild, curious surprise and fond acknowledgement from yr loved ones, its easy to forget how terrifying this ordeal this can be for those of us who don't have the acceptance of our families, those of us who labour under an impossibly conditional kind of love. I'm thinking a lot about chosen families this week, and the beautiful, brave strength of queers who have had to adapt and transform our collective idea of 'family' in order to ensure loving, supportive structures are there to embrace us when the old, traditional ones fail. How inventive and wonderful we are.

And here's that Macklemore track again, because its pertinant to the above and all I can listen to at the moment. 

"We press play, don't press pause"